Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters

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The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and Maids (commonly referred to as the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, BSCP) was a labor union in the United States. Founded in 1925, it was the first labor organization led by African Americans to receive a charter in the American Federation of Labor (AFL). The BSCP gathered a membership of 18,000 passenger railway workers across Canada, Mexico, and the United States. Beginning after the American Civil War, the job of Pullman porter had become an important means of work by African Americans. The leaders of the BSCP—including A. Philip Randolph, its founder and first president, Milton Webster, vice president and lead negotiator, and C. L. Dellums, vice president and second president—became leaders in the Civil Rights Movement, especially concerning fair employment and continued to play a significant role in the movement after it focused on the eradication of segregation in the Southern United States. BSCP members such as E. D. Nixon were among...

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